


A Good Café on the Place Saint-Michel

by eyra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Bottom Sirius Black, Hot mess Sirius, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Modern Era, Oral Sex, Paris (City), PhD student Remus, Romance, Slash, Tall Remus Lupin, Top Remus Lupin, Wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24026878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyra/pseuds/eyra
Summary: How wonderful, Sirius thinks, to be so sure of the direction in which you’re headed and yet so free to wander down whichever path takes your fancy next. It’s something like the complete opposite of where he finds himself; no idea where he’s supposed to be going, and agonising over every turn along the way. The idea of happily floating from city to city, figuring oneself out on the road, is both intoxicating and utterly, utterly terrifying.Sirius is a neurotic mess on an ill-advised assignment for a travel magazine. Remus is ten years his senior, writing his thesis whilst living in Paris. Wine is involved.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 36
Kudos: 258





	A Good Café on the Place Saint-Michel

**Author's Note:**

> Needed a little break from Scotland so heading over to Paris for a few days for something completely different. Enjoy!
> 
> Title from Hemingway's "A Moveable Feast", and where I fancy Remus and Sirius stop for oysters and Sancerre on their way to Notre-Dame.

It’s altogether too hot for a spring day. The sun burnt through the welcome clouds just before noon, and now scorches the back of Sirius’s neck as he aimlessly trudges across the dusty Pont d'Iena with absolutely no idea what he’s looking for and a growing, nauseating wave of panic rising inside him. James was an idiot to trust him with this, he thinks; he’s entirely unqualified, woefully underprepared, and, if he’s being honest with himself - which he wasn’t with James - most likely still far too raw from the events of the late winter to be embarking on something for which he’s so monumentally inadequate, especially so early into his new, independent life. Perhaps he should’ve just stayed, and put up with them for a bit longer. The thought sends a shiver down the back of his neck despite the blazing sunshine. 

It had been James’s plan to get Sirius back on his feet after the emancipation: offer him a trial piece with Fleamont’s publishing house, a fluffy tour de Paris for one of the firm’s travel magazines, and it had seemed so simple when James put it forward. Go to Paris, take some photographs, write a bit about them, come home. But Sirius is fast realising that knowing his way around a camera is markedly less than half the battle. He can take a decent picture; he can find the angle, and the light, and the shapes for a passingly-adequate photograph. But he has absolutely no idea what to say about it - any of it. He’s not a writer and never has been, and James’s assumptions that Paris would be an easy gig because Sirius ostensibly knew the city were so misguided Sirius almost laughs to himself now, jostled by surge after surge of tourists outside the Trocadéro Gardens. He hadn’t told James that every time he’d come to Paris as a child he’d simply gone from Charles de Gaulle to the back of a blacked-out town car, to the Royal Monceau, where he’d sat in his room for the entirety of the family’s visit save for whatever gala or opening or dinner he was there to attend. He’s never seen Paris; not really. He’s never strolled down the Champs-Élysées, or eaten a crêpe in the Jardin des Tuileries, or done any of the the other things you’re supposed to do in the capital. He’s never even seen Notre-Dame. So all in all, woefully unsuitable for the job, and increasingly, depressingly present to that realisation. 

He hikes his camera bag higher onto his shoulder, mindful of the way his polo shirt sticks horribly to his skin and he wishes he’d had the foresight to bring at least a bottle of water from the hotel; anything to combat the oppressive, unwelcome heat of the city’s busy streets. And then he spots it; the Holy Grail. An empty seat at a table on the pavement overlooking the bustling road, the first he’s seen outside any café all morning, and he barely gives a thought to the measly four photographs on his memory card and the fact that he has less than forty-eight hours in which to finish this thing as he makes a beeline for the empty rattan chair, carving his way through the surging crowd to dump his bag on the seat, an explorer claiming some vacant land. It’s only then that he realises the chair on the other side of the small table is very much occupied. 

“Hello,” says a calm, very English voice, and Sirius looks across to see a man smiling up at him.

He falters, his face flushing even more than it already was from the dry, dusty heat. “S-sorry,” he stutters, hovering awkwardly halfway-in and halfway-out of the vacant seat. “Can I...?”

The man waves a welcoming hand, gesturing Sirius into the chair. He’s a joy to look at, Sirius muses, as he sinks into the seat; tanned and lovely, all endless limbs and freckles. He’s wearing a loose linen shirt and the shorts that Sirius wishes he’d pulled on instead of his chinos, with one leg crossed casually over the other as his long fingers toy absently with the stem of his wine glass. 

“Please,” he smiles, taking a sip of his drink and looking back out to the crowd from behind his sunglasses. Sirius can’t take his eyes off him; anyone who can look that elegant and dignified in such awful, city heat demands closer study. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs, hefting his bag onto the floor under the table between them and tucking the strap under his thigh on the chair. “Too bloody warm.”

The stranger chuckles, running a freckled hand through his sandy curls. 

“It’s a bit much for May, isn’t it?” he grins, and then a waiter appears out of nowhere and places a glass between Sirius and the half-full bottle of rosé in the middle of the table. 

“Oh, no, I’m not...” he fumbles, but the waiter’s gone, and the man across the table is already pouring Sirius a glass of the wine. 

“Please,” he says again pleasantly, waving off Sirius’s mortified protestations. “Don’t make me drink alone.”

“Are you sure?” Sirius asks awkwardly, eyeing the other man. He really is _lovely_ to look at.

“Positive. Santé.”

They clink their glasses together across the rattan table, and all notion of common etiquette leaves Sirius entirely when he takes a sip of the cool liquid and closes his eyes in unabashed bliss; it’s pure ambrosia after his morning trudging around the dusty streets. 

“Yes, it’s not bad is it?” the other man says lightly, twisting the bottle towards himself so he can read the label. “For a tourist spot, anyway.”

Sirius nods, taking another grateful sip. “It’s lovely. Thank you.”

“Not at all,” the man smiles, and then, reaching over to offer his hand to Sirius: “I’m Remus.”

“Sirius,” replies Sirius as he takes the man’s hand, long, warm fingers enveloping his palm. “Nice to meet you.”

“And you.”

They lapse into a silence that Sirius isn’t sure is comfortable or not, so he distracts himself by taking another glug of wine and watching the crowds passing by the café. He doesn’t understand the appeal at all; herded like cattle across heaving pavements and busy streets in the blazing heat to look at landmarks they could’ve just as easily Googled, and then he’s almost laughing at just how poor a candidate he is for this assignment and how terrible he’s going to feel when he gets back to London on Sunday and has to explain to James that all he has to show for the trip are four photos and a blister from his unfortunate choice of footwear. 

“Photographer?” asks Remus, interrupting Sirius’s bleak train of thought as he gestures towards the leather bag under their table. 

“Travel writer, apparently,” says Sirius, not bothering to try to mask the glum, defeatist note in his voice. “But not a very good one.”

The other man raises his eyebrows. 

“Why would you say that?”

“Because I have idea what to write about,” sighs Sirius miserably, taking another swig of wine. “Or what to photograph. Or where to go. Or what I’m even doing here.”

Remus watches him from across the table, twirling his wine glass round on the tablecloth by the stem, studying him. 

“Hmm,” he hums after a moment, offering Sirius a sympathetic smile. “Yes, that does sound rather hopeless.”

That startles a laugh from Sirius. He’s not sure whether it’s the wine or the relief of finally sitting down or the way Remus is looking at him with that easy, warm smile, but suddenly the assignment seems to matter less than it did only a moment ago, and Sirius finds himself relaxing back into the rattan chair as he gratefully accepts Remus’s offer of another glass of rosé.

“What do you do?” he asks, taking a sip. 

“I’m a student.”

Sirius frowns; the man is definitely several years his senior, easily late twenties, perhaps older still, and his own - admittedly curtailed - student days are well behind him. 

“PhD,” Remus clarifies, as if hearing Sirius’s thoughts. “I’m writing my thesis on museum architecture. Or rather, on buildings that are repurposed as museums and the lasting impact that their original function has on the way we interact with them in an academic capacity.” He waves his hand as he hurries through his explanation, and Sirius imagines he’s downplaying the complexities of it. 

“Wow,” he says, genuinely impressed. His own abandoned degree sits heavy at the back of his mind, in a pile of other things from the past few years he tries not to think about. He’ll go back and finish it, one day. Maybe. “That sounds interesting.”

Remus grins. “Depends who you ask, I think,” he says. “ _I_ think it’s interesting. My supervisor has her doubts.”

“What about your parents?” Sirius asks, and it’s not until after he’s said it that he realises what a bizarre question it is, really. It’s a reflex, or something; one of so many that he’s only now just learning are merely a result of years of conditioning and negative reinforcement. Not everyone has to consider the response one's parents will have to even the most minor decision made about one's own life. Especially when one is a full-grown adult.

Remus cocks his head curiously. “They’re interested, in a roundabout way,” he shrugs, taking a sip of wine and gazing out at the passing crowd. “They probably thought I'd go down the art history route like my father, but my mum’s field is Renaissance architecture so she’s pretty into what I’m doing. What about your parents? Was the travel writing their idea?”

It would make sense, thinks Sirius; he’s patently not here of his own accord, and why else would a man in his early twenties be doing a job he so clearly wasn’t suitable for it it wasn’t for his parents pushing him into it? It’s so far off the mark, though, he almost laughs. 

“Categorically not,” he smiles, shaking his head. “This is my best friend’s plan to kick-start some sort of career for me. Except I’m underqualified and probably suffering from some sort of undiagnosed PTSD that prevents me from being anything other than a complete fuck up, regardless of which city I’m in.”

He’s joking, mostly, but Remus is looking at him now with something that might be genuine concern, and it makes the back of Sirius’s neck burn in a way that has nothing to do with the midday sun. 

“Heavens,” says Remus lightly, as he offers Sirius a kind smile. “Sounds like you need a therapist. Or another drink.”

Sirius barks out a laugh, and then Remus is beckoning over a waiter and ordering them another bottle of wine. Sirius doesn’t protest. 

They don’t talk about his parents. Remus asks, once, but Sirius waves him off and starts talking about James instead and Remus seems to get the message. He tells him about Fleamont’s company, and the travel magazine he’s supposed to be on assignment for, and then bemoans again his complete lack of inspiration and direction before an hour has passed and he’s waving the waiter over himself to order a third bottle for the pair of them.

“So, how does the original function of a building impact on the way we interact with it in an academic capacity?” Sirius asks, chewing on a piece of bread from a basket that’s appeared from somewhere, marvelling that he can remember the subject of Remus’s thesis after so many glasses. 

Remus laughs. “I’ll let you know,” he says, taking a sip from his own glass. “I’m very much in the exploratory phase at the moment. But Paris seemed like the best place to start.” He nods, looking at out the crowded pavement; Sirius imagines Remus can see countless museums from their vantage point near the bridge. He doesn’t know any of them. 

“Then where will you go?”

“Barcelona, maybe?” Remus shrugs, tearing a piece of bread in two and chewing on one half. “Fes has some incredibly beautiful museums. London, obviously.”

Sirius hums non-committedly. How wonderful, he thinks, to be so sure of the direction in which you’re headed and yet so free to wander down whichever path takes your fancy next. It’s something like the complete opposite of where he finds himself; no idea where he’s supposed to be going, and agonising over every turn along the way. The idea of happily floating from city to city, figuring oneself out on the road, is both intoxicating and utterly, utterly terrifying. 

They chat lightly about Remus’s work, and then the city itself, Sirius cringing inwardly every time Remus offers something erudite and genuinely interesting and he finds he has absolutely nothing to offer in return. The extent of Sirius’s knowledge of Paris is that the place is hot, crowded and noisy, that it plays host to a series of charity galas every summer of which the Black family are lifelong patrons, and that there’s a Goyard shop off the Champs-Élysées in which Sirius once had such a monumental argument with his mother that he’d actually been sent home from the trip early, shooed off to the jet with a driver and a promise that he’d be dealt with when the rest of the family returned. That had been the worst summer, probably; the one that prompted James to spend the next eighteen months begging Sirius to walk away. 

He’s torn from his gloomy musings by Remus ordering them a bowl of olives and another basket of bread with a pot of tapenade, and then he’s rather distracted by the way Remus is popping the olives into his mouth and licking the oil off his fingers afterwards, no doubt oblivious to the salaciousness of it all. And then Remus catches him looking, and pauses before shaking his head slightly, a smile pulling at his lips. 

“Bad idea,” he murmurs, still smiling at Sirius as he takes a sip from his wine glass. Sirius has lost count of how many glasses they’ve been through. 

“Not necessarily,” shrugs Sirius, equal parts mortified and thrilled by his forwardness. Not that he’s ever been shy about this sort of thing; he’s never been told no, for one, but Remus is practically a stranger, and the age gap must be just the wrong side of negligible. Or just the right side, Sirius thinks, as Remus leans back in his chair and Sirius gets to trace the long, long lines of him, from his broad, tanned hands down to his loafered feet. 

Remus smiles. “Uh huh,” he says lightly, helping himself to another olive, smiling vaguely out at the thinning crowds as the blazing sun finally, mercifully begins to slip below the buildings opposite to make way for a still, balmy twilight. 

Perhaps the best thing about Paris, Sirius is coming to realise, is the apparent absence of last orders. The sun continues to set, and the crowds continue to taper off, and their waiter continues to wait on them; another bottle, more bread, a plate of cheeses that Remus picks at whilst throwing his head back and laughing loudly as Sirius regales him with tales from his schooldays. 

“And by the end of the day her entire head was purple,” Sirius finishes, grinning at the memory and the way Remus is wiping tears from his eyes. 

“You’re both devils,” Remus says, shaking his head in despair. “Utter devils.”

Sirius shrugs as he downs the last of his wine. “She shouldn’t have given us that detention, then.”

It’s properly dark soon, and the stream of tourists passing the front of the café slows to an occasional trickle of couples walking hand-in-hand, the odd food delivery driver on a bicycle, or a worker heading home from a late night at the office. They’re not the only people still sitting out on the pavement, but when Remus drains his glass he pushes it away, finished with it, and glances at his watch. 

“Well,” he says, smiling across at Sirius tiredly. “Perhaps we should call it a night?”

If Sirius was sober, he thinks, he might panic at that; a swell of disappointment might weigh heavy in his stomach, his despondency creeping back up his spine at the prospect of walking back to his hotel alone then spending another hopeless day tomorrow wandering aimlessly around this city of strangers. But he’s at least two bottles in, maybe three, and he simply smiles as he stretches back in his chair and looks across at the older man. He’s not letting Remus get away that easily. 

“Where are you staying?” he asks innocently, and watches with delight at the smile pulling insistently at Remus’s lips as he catches his meaning. 

“Not too far.”

Sirius stands, a little unsteady on his feet as he heaves his camera bag onto his shoulder. “I should probably walk you back,” he says, offering Remus a hand and pulling him up from his seat. “Just to make sure you get home okay.”

It’s a silly thing: Remus must be almost a foot taller than Sirius’s five foot four, and with considerably more to him in terms of strength, but it makes them both laugh as Remus relents and allows himself to be tugged up out of the chair and out onto the street. 

“Lead the way,” Sirius says, and then he’s tucking himself easily under Remus’s arm as the two of them begin to meander along the river and through the 16th arrondissement, chatting about absolutely nothing but finding each other utterly hilarious all the way. It’s charming, and exactly what Sirius thinks a warm spring night in Paris should be. Perhaps the city isn’t a total loss after all. 

Sirius has a hand up the back of Remus’s shirt by the time they’re turning down a narrow side street, and then, delightfully, Remus is crowding him into the recess of the doorway to his building and pressing hot, searching kisses to his lips, his jaw; everywhere, all at once. It’s pure magic, and the height of him as he pushes himself against Sirius is about as thrilling a thing as Sirius can remember. 

“Maybe I could come up for a nightcap,” he whispers hopefully against Remus’s mouth, and feels the other man grin. 

“Maybe you could.” 

But then Remus is pulling back slightly, and biting down on his lip and narrowing his eyes at Sirius as if he’s fighting some great internal battle, which borders on impressive considering the amount of rosé they’ve both consumed today. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-one,” replies Sirius impatiently, leaning into to kiss him again, but Remus holds back. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m quite a bit older than you, Sirius,” Remus murmurs, regretfully, but he’s still smiling faintly. He’s still got one warm hand on the small of Sirius’s back, long fingers toying with the hem of the fabric where it sits against his flushed skin. “I don’t know if this is...”

“Oh, give over,” Sirius says, rolling his eyes and pressing his lips firmly against Remus’s, who again, does a poor job of resisting. “I’m not some wilting flower, Remus.”

Remus grins again at that, and then he’s shaking his head in defeat and they’re stumbling through the narrow wooden doorway into the foyer of the building. Remus’s apartment is on the third floor, up a narrow wrought iron spiral staircase that they hurry round, both laughing as they climb awkwardly so as not to stop touching one another. Remus fumbles with his keys at the top of the steps and then, finally, they’re inside and Sirius is pinning him to the wall in the dark corridor of the apartment. 

“Nightcap?” Remus whispers against his lips when Sirius gives him a moment’s reprieve. He’s already breathless. 

“No thank you,” comes Sirius’s impatient retort, and then they’re staggering along the hallway in the dark, Remus guiding them towards a bed, somewhere; Sirius can only really concentrate on the feeling of warm hands under his shirt and the way Remus smells like rosé and sunshine, and when the backs of his legs find the edge of a mattress he lets himself fall, pulling Remus down on top of him. 

He’s not sure what happens to their clothes, but soon Remus is murmuring something about a lamp and wanting to see him, and Sirius lies back on the covers as Remus flicks a light on somewhere, casting a low, amber glow across the bed. 

“Well?” Sirius asks, raising an eyebrow at Remus as he looks down at him. He’s being cocky. He’s always been this way with sex; the one area where he’s never lacked confidence, and he’s often wondered if it has something to do with the fact that his parents would have apoplexy if they knew about any of his nighttime exploits, like a crude act of rebellion to offset the pained obedience in every other facet of his life. The wine helps too, naturally. 

“Stunning,” Remus grins, and then he’s climbing on top of him, covering him completely, a warm hand running down Sirius’s side and dipping below his legs to rub at him, teasing. 

Sirius sucks in a breath, fists twisting loosely in the soft white sheets as he revels in the feeling of Remus’s fingers on him. He’s hard almost instantly, and when he opens his eyes a moment later it’s just in time to see Remus lowering himself to take Sirius in his mouth, all hot tongue and wine-slicked lips and hazel eyes gazing up at him in the dim light of the room. 

“Oh, fuck,” Sirius whispers, squirming beneath Remus’s ministrations. He collapses back again, blinking dazedly up at the ornate plaster frieze in the centre of the high ceiling, sculpted cherubim and seraphs watching over them, in either exultation or condemnation; he isn’t sure which. 

“Your apartment’s lovely,” he says breathlessly, the wine still tilting something in his perception, and he feels more than he hears Remus laugh against him. 

“Strange boy,” Remus murmurs when he pulls off, and then he’s grinning down at Sirius and the sheer size of him - the broad chest and wide shoulders and height, _God_ , but his height - sends a fresh shock of lust through Sirius’s whole body. 

“You’re lovely,” he whispers wildly, and then Remus is kissing him and moaning softly against his lips and reaching down between them to gently coax Sirius’s legs together. 

“Like this,” he hums, positioning him, and then he’s using his hand to guide himself into the apex of Sirius’s thighs, pressing forward until Sirius feels the head of him drag over his entrance and back again. It’s the most thrilling, obscene thing he’s ever known. 

“Alright?” Remus whispers against his lips, and Sirius simply kisses him and throws his arms around his neck and squeezes his thighs together as tight as he can because God, that’s more than alright. That’s perfection itself. 

Neither one of them lasts long. The wine makes them sloppy, ungainly, both laughing as Remus slips out and leaves a wet streak across Sirius’s upper thigh until he’s guiding himself back and using his hand to pull insistently at Sirius between them, and then Sirius is painting both their stomachs as he feels Remus spill somewhere between him and the sheets, a warm stickiness seeping pleasingly down to his entrance. It’s disgusting and intoxicating and marvellous, and when Remus stumbles back from the bathroom a few moments later with a flannel Sirius waves him off, pulling a sheet up around himself and shuffling back on his side to press himself into the bracket of Remus’s arms behind him. 

“Night,” he mumbles sleepily, happily, his body singing with satisfaction. There’s a soft kiss in his hair, he thinks, and then he’s simply floating, drifting away on a tide of rosé and elation. 

If the angels on the frieze have anything to say about it, Sirius doesn’t hear them. 

***

His mouth feels fuzzy and hot when he wakes. There’s sunlight streaming through gossamer curtains that dress the tall, arched windows on the far side of the room, and when Sirius sits up and looks across the bed out towards the hallway he sees Remus, dressed and perched at a table in the opposite room. He smiles at Sirius when he catches him looking. 

“Morning,” he calls, watching as Sirius drags himself off the bed and wraps himself inelegantly in a ruined sheet. 

“Hmmph,” mumbles Sirius, or something like it. His head is throbbing, clouded and heavy, and as he pads across to the kitchen he rues turning down the offer of a flannel before they fell asleep; what felt lewd and enticing last night now feels simply uncomfortable, and he despairs inwardly at his own depravity. 

“Orange juice?” Remus offers politely, somewhere between amusement and sympathy. “Or shower?”

The shower takes precedence, Sirius’s body demanding recompense for yesterday, and he stands under the hot spray in the expansive marble cubicle until his skin seems new and he feels vaguely human again. There are soft white towels folded neatly on the side, Savon de Marseille and Miller Harris and Chanel lining the shelf below the tall guilt mirror above the sink, and when Sirius wanders back down the hallway in a fluffy robe he takes in the polished oak flooring and the towering bookcases stuffed with leather-bound tomes, and the sheer size of the place altogether. 

“Do you live here?” he says without preamble when he gets back to the kitchen and folds himself into a high backed chair opposite Remus, who looks up from behind yesterday's Le Monde with a small smile. 

“At the moment,” he says, folding his paper and pouring Sirius a glass of juice. “It’s my parents’ place,” he adds, with something that might be embarrassment. “I know I should probably be doing this properly and living penniless in an old fifth floor tenement with mice and a cantankerous Parisian landlady, but,” he shrugs, smiling. “This just made sense.”

“It’s lovely,” Sirius murmurs absently as he watches Remus push down the plunger on the cafetière in the middle of the table. He debates reaching for a pain au raisin; his stomach remains unconvinced. 

Remus nods, and it looks like he’s trying to bite back a laugh. “Yes, you said.”

“Oh god, I did, didn’t I?” Sirius groans quietly, putting his head in his hands and hoping vaguely that the polished oak floor might open up and swallow him whole, chair and all. 

He hears Remus chuckle, and then he’s moving and there’s a gentle kiss on the top of his head, pressed lightly into his damp hair. 

“You’re lovely,” says Remus softly, before he crosses over to the window, pushing it open to let in a breath of already balmy air from outside, the sounds of Paris waking up meandering through the crack and into the apartment. Sirius thinks he might be blushing. 

They chat easily over a lazy breakfast, Sirius eventually braving a cup of coffee and a pastry that his stomach mercifully acquiesces to and doesn’t do anything embarrassing with. There’s an orange from a bowl on the dresser which also goes down well, and then Remus is tidying everything away and producing a packet of Gauloises from a drawer.

“Sorry,” he mumbles as he lights one, holding it between his lips and shuffling closer to the open window. “Horrible habit.” 

Sirius waves off his offer of the packet with a polite smile, and spends the next few minutes desperately trying to concentrate on what Remus is telling him - something about the building, maybe, and how it used to be a publishing house or something - and not be hopelessly distracted by the way Remus casually drags on the cigarette and lets the cloud of smoke float alluringly from his lips, eddying this way and that in the warm air of the apartment. It’s bewitching. 

“So what are you thinking?” Remus prompts, stubbing the light out on an ashtray on the windowsill and waving the last of the smoke along, away from Sirius. 

“Hmm?”

“For your article?”

“Oh,” Sirius mumbles, sinking back in his chair, feeling suddenly dejected. "I dunno."

There's a long silence. Remus studies him from across the table, measuring him, and then he's shaking his head and standing up decisively, motioning for Sirius to do the same.

"Come on," he says, waving Sirius out and back across the hall into the bedroom. "Get dressed."

Sirius frowns, hovering somewhere in the doorway, unsure if he's being summarily dismissed or reprimanded, or both.

"What?"

"I'm taking you somewhere," says Remus. "You are not coming to Paris and leaving with a mere _'Oh, I dunno.'_ I simply won't allow it."

A thrill rushes through Sirius. Damn the city, he thinks; the prospect of being allowed to spend more time with Remus is enticement enough. He grins, crossing to the bedroom and finding that his clothes have been neatly folded on a low upholstered chair near an ancient armoire, and he tugs them on hurriedly, hangover entirely forgotten.

***

"So," says Remus, raising his voice to be heard over the roaring traffic and throng of tourists lining every inch of the Place du Carrousel. "The Louvre. Most famous gallery in the city. The Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, Delacroix's _La Liberté guidant le peuple_ ; the big hitters."

Sirius nods, hurrying to keep up with Remus as they push through the crowd towards the museum. It's shameful, he thinks, as he gazes up at the building, that he's been to Paris numerous times and not once visited the place. They passed it in a town car once, late at night when everything was closed and all he could see through the blacked-out windows was the huge illuminated pyramid at the centre of the piazza in the distance. But seeing it now, in the blazing sunshine, is incomparable; the gleaming edifice, sprawling wings and pavilions and balconies lined with statues and gargoyles and great, ornate frescoes carved into the very stone. The crowd thins slightly as they come upon the piazza proper, leaving the traffic behind to see sprawling, immaculate ponds of glistening turquoise waters, fountains dancing prettily in the morning sun as it refracts off the plane glass of the pyramids, scorching and so bright Sirius has to squint against it.

"It's been so many things," Remus is continuing, pulling them up at a low wall beside one of the lakes and offering Sirius a flask of water from his bag, which Sirius takes gratefully. "A garrison fortress, in the twelfth century, before the Crusades, and then a palace under Francis I. Then various Academies and institutions, all through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And then, of course, a museum."

It's a treat, hearing Remus lecture, and Sirius wonders vaguely if his programme involves any teaching. He hopes it does; he would make such a wonderful teacher. He goes on, leading Sirius around the back of the pyramids, pointing out extensions to the original palace and detailing when they were made, and why, and by whom, and maybe it should be dull - Sirius never was much for history - but the passion in Remus's voice utterly protects it from any sense of dreariness or pomposity; it's fascinating, and as Remus talks Sirius feels the palace and the piazza and the whole bloody city come to life around him in a way that makes the heat and the crowds and the looming threat of an unwritten article evaporate entirely, until all that's left is the story and Remus's deep, intoxicating voice.

They head into the museum soon after, through a subterranean entrance that Remus says will be ten times quicker than joining the ghastly queue that snakes out of the main pyramid and across the sun-beaten square. Remus flashes a pass of some sort to a security guard who waves them through with a smile and a respectful nod, and Sirius finds there's something thoroughly exciting about Remus being someone Important who can do things like that. How wonderful, he thinks, as Remus grabs them a couple of floorplans and leads them up to the Richelieu Wing, to be revered and praised for your mind and your accomplishments rather than your surname.

Remus's tour is first-class. He leads Sirius from wing to wing at an almost breakneck pace, stopping at all the big hitters, as Remus had put it - the Da Vincis, the Michelangelos - but pausing also at key thresholds in the building itself, boundaries where whichever king had added on a wing or a pavilion, why this reading room had been built, why the colonnades lining a north-facing balcony off the Etruscan gallery are markedly different in design to the rest of the main palace. They stop at a café for an espresso mid-morning, and Remus digs out an old volume from his bag that details the original foundations of the medieval fortress overlaid with the blueprints of the modern museum.

"How did you get into all this?" asks Sirius, poring over the maps in Remus's book.

Remus leans back in his chair, sipping his coffee. "My parents took me to a lot of museums as a kid," he says. "They were both teaching, at the time, so they were always dragging me round some gallery or other. I bloody loved it."

He's grinning when Sirius looks up from the book, and Sirius feels his heart pull a little; for Remus and his unbridled, unabashed passion for _something_ , or regret that he doesn't know what that feels like, or some kind of jealousy that Remus has anything in his childhood that he can claim to have loved.

"That sounds great," he says quietly. He doesn't mean it to sound sad, but it comes out like that anyway, and he cringes inwardly.

"What about you?" says Remus softly, watching Sirius across the table. "You haven't said much about your childhood."

It's a bit presumptuous, Sirius thinks vaguely; they don't know one another, and Remus has no right, really, to any of that. But he knows he's going to tell him anyway, and the certainty of the realisation does something curious to Sirius's chest.

"Yeah, it wasn't great," he says flatly, taken aback by the ease with which he can now apparently share this with Remus. He's only ever spoken to James about any of this, and a part of him thinks that should be sacrosanct; like he's betraying James, somehow, by so readily divulging things to a virtual stranger that it took him years, decades, to share with his best friend. 

He huffs out a breath, taking a sip of his espresso.

"My parents are horrible. Rotten, horrible people. I didn't have much of a childhood, really."

"That's a shame," says Remus gently, and what might sound dismissive or even facetious on someone else here is, somehow, incredibly earnest, and Sirius can't help but smile at him.

"It is," he nods, chuckling. "It's a bloody great shame."

"So that's how you ended up working for James's dad?" Remus asks, joining up the threads of their conversations at the café last night. "A fresh start?"

"Yeah, something like that."

There's a comfortable silence, and what should feel despondent and hopeless and awkward somehow just... doesn't. For the first time since he arrived in the city, Sirius finds himself feeling curiously accepting of the whole thing; like maybe it wasn't the worst idea in the world to come here, and maybe he will find something to write about, and maybe he won't have to go back to London grovelling to James to give him another chance to prove himself.

"You'll figure it out," says Remus lightly, tucking his book back into his bag and downing the rest of his espresso.

"Yeah," Sirius nods, smiling at him. "I reckon I probably will."

They head back out into the blazing sunshine a little before noon and Remus sets himself up on a bench along the east wing of the palace as Sirius, inspired, pulls out his camera and begins to catalogue the detail of the square; the gargoyles, the pyramids, the great towering arches beneath the gallery leading out to the river. He finds stories in the faces of the statues lining the pavilions to the north, something in the photographs heavy with strata of history that he couldn't even begin to parse a few hours ago, centuries of kings and conflicts and artists laid out before him, offering him the most fleeting of glimpses into the heart of the city but God, it's enough. Enough to convince him that maybe he can do this; maybe he just needed someone to show him the way in.

Remus buys him a crêpe from a stand in the Tuileries, appalled that Sirius had never indulged in the touristic right of passage before, and then they're wandering south to the banks of the river. Sirius pulls his camera out again when they stop near the Pont Neuf and captures an oblivious Remus leaning against the old wall, looking out over the water, and then another when Remus turns to him with a vague smile.

"Doubt they'll want to hang that in the Louvre," Remus murmurs good-naturedly as Sirius inspects the photograph. He disagrees, but says nothing; Remus is more beautiful than anything the Old Masters could've conjured up.

They stop at a café on a busy street for lunch, and Remus orders them plates of oysters and terrines and warm, chewy bread, and they share two carafes of Sancerre which goes straight to Sirius's blood and makes him feel warm and giddy and content in a way he knows he hasn't felt in years. He slips a hand in Remus's as they leave and turn west to wander back along the river, and Remus just smiles and lets him, and it's perfect.

Sirius's feet ache by golden hour. He feels like they've seen everything; Notre-Dame, the Grand Palais, the Degas and the Renoir and the Manet of the Musée d'Orsay in the achingly beautiful old train station on the banks of the Seine. He runs out of space on his memory card in his camera by the time they've circled back to the Arc de Triomphe, so he takes out his phone and snaps silly tourist pictures of Remus pointing at the landmark in the sea of late afternoon tourists. There never seems to be a question as to where Sirius will stay tonight; they end up at his hotel without ever really talking about it, and Remus waits in the lobby whilst Sirius packs his suitcase and checks out a night early, asking the concierge to cancel his car to the airport the next morning and booking a taxi from Remus's address instead. They stop by a Carrefour and pick up a side of salmon and a brown paper bag stuffed with samphire and garlic and waxy new potatoes, and Sirius captures the whole thing on his phone; the shop front, the basketed bicycle propped up outside, the back of Remus in his shorts and leather backpack on the cobbles down the narrow street. By the time they're back in Remus's apartment, Sirius's fingers are twitching in anticipation, as if they know he might finally have something to say; something he can put down on paper and weave amongst the day's photographs and, with a prayer, have something real to take back to London with him.

He stows his suitcase in Remus's room, pulling out his laptop and retrieving his camera from his bag before hovering awkwardly in the corridor, watching Remus unpack the shopping in the kitchen.

"Everything okay?" Remus asks, catching him standing there.

"Yeah," says Sirius, glancing down at his laptop. "I just thought I might..."

Remus smiles. He dries his hands off from where he's been washing the vegetables, and comes out to guide Sirius by the shoulders into a small, comfortable study off the dining room. He sits him down at a desk by a window overlooking the quiet street outside, and clears his own papers and books aside to make room for him.

"Sit," he says, pressing a kiss into Sirius's hair. "Write."

So he does. He brings the photographs in first, and it's all instinct as he picks out any image that tells him it's going to be important, and then he's back outside the museum, crafting the scene so acutely that he fancies he can feel the hot morning sun on the back of his neck again, smell the river as he wanders along its banks and notes the café they stopped at for lunch. He pairs a photograph of the haunted facade of Notre-Dame with a paragraph about its reconstruction, an image of the sun-beaten mall outside Les Invalides with a mention of the bistro they'd sat outside until almost midnight, and exactly which carafe of wine one should order, and which table would likely give the best view of the bridge. Remus brings him in a plate of salmon and vegetables and a glass of wine at one point, and Sirius tries to break off so they can eat together before Remus shuts the door on him and tells him to keep writing. It's dark outside by the time he's done; he's walked the same streets of Paris again in their entirety, and revisited the Mona Lisa, and drunk all the rosé accorded to him, and when he finally leans back in the chair and fires off the document in an email to James he thinks, hopefully, that he's actually made something worthwhile tonight. And there's something in him that feels defiantly proud at that realisation.

Remus looks up from his book when he hears Sirius pad into the bedroom, and he smiles at him.

"Finished?"

"Finished."

He pauses, watching Remus on the bed, and then he's crossing the room to him and taking Remus's book, closing it and placing it carefully on the bedside table. He doesn't say anything as he clambers onto the bed and straddles him, pulling his own shirt off over his head and revelling in the feeling of Remus watching him, wordlessly.

They kiss, slowly, until Sirius can feel Remus pressing against him through too many layers of clothing, and then he's reaching down between them to unbutton Remus's shorts and take him in his hand and stroke him, slowly, firmly. The only sound in the stifling room is their matching breath, laboured and unsteady, and Sirius is trembling when he leans in to meet Remus's mouth.

"Have you got a condom?" he hears himself whisper against his lips, and Remus nods and pulls back, regretfully, to pull open a drawer on a sideboard by the door. Sirius is undressed by the time he returns, and Remus pulls his own clothes off with the help of Sirius's unsteady hands before he's leaning back against the headboard and Sirius is straddling him again, moaning softly when he feels Remus's searching fingers run lightly over his entrance.

It's a slow, burning thing; all whispers and gasps and hot, damp skin, and when Sirius finally sinks down onto Remus and feels himself filled completely, it's all he can do not to cry out in jubilation to the angels on the frieze above them. How immaculate, he thinks, to be here tonight with someone so glorious as Remus; to be filled by him and kissed by him and held by him afterwards, so safe and elemental, as if this had been written before tonight, before Sirius was born, before the plans of the fortress of the old city had ever been drawn up. And when they're laid out together in the dim light of the room and Remus brushes an errant strand of hair from Sirius's face and kisses him gently across the feather-down pillow, Sirius isn't sure he can even blame the wine tonight.

***

"What time's your flight?"

"Erm," Sirius glances at his watch, his other hand tugging at the zip on his suitcase as he finishes packing up his things. "Couple of hours."

The taxi will be here to pick him up in fifteen minutes or so, and although a part of him had hoped that Remus might suggest coming along with him to the airport, a bigger, more rational part of him had regretfully beaten that down shortly after he woke, on account of that being altogether far too much and Remus probably having things to do today, besides. He thinks, glumly, as he stuffs his feet into his loafers out in the hallway, that two days is far too short a time to have known Remus for, and the words _"we'll always have Paris"_ etch themselves into a corner of his brain somewhere, taunting him.

"Well," says Remus, coming out to join him in the hall and drawing him into a gentle, unhurried hug. "I'm very glad you took that empty seat at my table."

Sirius chuckles despite himself.

"Me too," he says, his words slightly muffled against the fabric of Remus's shirt. And he really doesn't want to let go; he can feel the minutes slipping by, knows he should be grabbing his camera bag and drinking the rest of his coffee and stepping back to take one last look at Remus, to cement the bones of him in his memory in case the photographs can't do him justice. But he can't; he can't let go.

"So," he hears Remus sigh, and has to swallow past something bitter and uncomfortable in his throat. "I think London is probably where I should be heading next."

Sirius doesn't move. He feels his fingers tighten slightly, of their own accord, in the linen of the back of Remus's shirt, but he doesn't move, or speak, or even breathe for fear of upsetting whatever precarious balance of the cosmos is allowing these words to spill from Remus's lips. These hopeful, joyous words.

"And I was wondering if I could see you, when I'm there?"

The breath that Sirius had been holding leaves him in an almighty, relieved gust, and he grins into Remus's chest as he nods and tightens his hold around him, something inside of him singing when he feels a kiss being pressed against the top of his head. It's wondrous; something promising and bright breaking up the newness and uncertainty of everything else, and Sirius positively aches at the prospect of this being more than an ephemeral fling from a chance encounter. How spectacular that would be.

"I think that would be okay," he says, still grinning, and then he does pull back, and leans up to kiss Remus, and doesn't stop until they hear the sound of the taxi's horn down in the street outside.

***

He's somewhere over the Channel when Sirius pulls his camera bag from the overhead compartment and finds the picture of Remus smiling at him from the banks of the Seine. He grins at the photograph, thinking of the number now stored promisingly in his contacts, and wonders absently if Remus knows as much about the British Museum as he does about the Louvre. 

He's looking forward to finding out.


End file.
